1. Field of the Invention
The present general inventive concept relates to a print terminal unit and a method of controlling print, and more particularly, to a print terminal unit which is capable of selecting an image forming apparatus according to a type of a document to be printed, and a method of controlling print.
2. Description of the Related Art
An image forming apparatus refers to an apparatus which prints printing data generated by a terminal device such as a computer on a recording medium. Such an image forming apparatus includes a photocopier, a printer, a facsimile machine, and a multi function peripheral (MFP) combining the functions of the aforementioned devices in a single device.
The image forming apparatus is divided into a dot image forming apparatus, an ink-jet image forming apparatus, and a laser image forming apparatus according to the printing principle. Since the ink-jet image forming apparatus prints a document at a lower cost per sheet compared to the laser image forming apparatus but has poor water resistance and light resistance, it is not suitable for a document requiring a long-term preservation period. On the other hand, the laser image forming apparatus is suitable for a document requiring a long-term preservation period but is not suitable for a document requiring a short-term preservation period since it prints a document at a higher cost per sheet compared to the ink-jet image forming apparatus.
Therefore, if a plurality of image forming apparatuses is connected, it is economical to use the mage forming apparatuses separately depending on their uses as the quality and cost of the output are different for each image forming apparatus. However, in the related art, any information regarding which image forming apparatus should be used to perform economical printing operation is not provided, and also, even if the user is aware of which image forming apparatus would be beneficial to economical printing operation, it is inconvenient to change a printer driver every time that a print job is performed.